Silly girl

Emma has officially hit a silly stage in life. She thinks everything is funny including fake crying, tooting (as her and her dad call it), and wearing things that don't fit her. Right after Josh was born she discovered the sunglasses we'd bought for her when she was an toddler.


After months of begging to put them on Josh (and months of us telling her that he is not old enough yet) she decided to wear them herself. As you can see, they are a bit small for her head but she had a blast (notice the milk dribbling out of her mouth because she's laughing so hard) parading around in them.







Emma is even a character in the bathtub! Ever since taking swim lessons this summer, the girl loves taking baths. She begs for one almost every morning, even when she has had one the night before. I think she feels like the garden tub in our bathroom is her own little pool. Yesterday while I was washing her hair I ran my hands through it and this is what I got.


Emma thought this was the most hilarious thing she had ever seen and laughed and laughed. After I got my camera, she begged me to do her hair again. Several styles later she finally seemed satisfied and continued on with her swimming adventures.

Adjustments

It has been three and a half weeks since Josh got his band and I am happy to say that he is doing great in it. Today we had a routine check up and the therapist was pleased with his progress. His forehead is really starting to round out and the back of his head is no longer noticeably flat on the left side. Josh looks adorable in his band and when we take it off for his bath (nightly because he stinks like no other) he looks like a totally different kid to me. Hopefully he will not need to be wearing it for to much longer though!

While Josh has been adjusting to the band smoothly the general public has not been adjusting as well. When we first got the band we were given an article written by a mom whose baby was in a band. In the article she tells of how her baby went from being cooed at and talked to in public to being completely ignored. At the time, I knew the article was given to prepare us for the same but I figured since it was written over five years ago that maybe times had changed. Well I was wrong! No longer do people ask me what Josh's name is or how old he is. People don't smile at him or talk to him anymore. The cashier at Sprouts yesterday was visibly excited to see the baby I was talking to in the car seat while I was in her line and once I got up to her, she took one look at him in his band and then didn't say a word to me about him. I know that people have no idea what the helmet on his head is for and most people probably think that he is sick or handicapped. I just think that would be more of a reason for people to be nice and talk to parents about their baby, but I guess people are just scared and don't want to offend. Oh well, I know my baby is adorable and hopefully by decorating his band people won't be as afraid to talk to us. I may just start talking to people randomly when I see them staring, it could be fun!

Here is Josh in his newly (almost complete) decorated band







Before I finish writing I just want to say thank you to the father that sat in front of us at 11:00 mass last Sunday. I know you will never read this but I'm sure by putting this out there, somehow the universe will get the message to you. You made my week by paying attention to my son, your silly faces and kind words meant more to me than you know!

So tired

It's been some time since I have posted anything and I have sat down every night of this last week to blog but just couldn't get motivated enough to actually do it. It has been a crazy week and we have been tired around here! On Friday 8/24 I left for Tucson to help with the Steubenville West Conference for the weekend. It was the first time I had been away from both kids since Josh was born and to top it off I was leaving Eric alone for the weekend after getting Josh's helmet the day before. Eric did great with the kids and kept them busy on Friday by hanging out with his mom and then had friends over that night. He even braved a road trip with both kids on Saturday to come down to Tucson (about an hour and 45 minute trip) to visit me for a few hours. I was happy to have them all there and Emma did a great job helping me drive my golf cart around dropping off speakers to their locations around U of A's campus.

Josh's first few days in his helmet were definitely an adjustment. They warned us that the helmet would make him sweat and that he could possibly develop heat rash. Well that was the understatement of the year! Josh is already a pretty sweaty kid and this just made it worse. By Sunday evening he had developed a pretty good heat rash on his head and we had to take him in for an appointment on Monday so the therapist could check it out. We were told to keep it off for the rest of the day and put it back on in the evening. We did just that and that night's sleep was just awful! Josh has been sleeping through the night for a few months now but he was up every 2 hours crying because of the heat. Unfortunately Tuesday night was more of the same and by Wednesday I was running on 5 hours total sleep for two nights. Also by Wednesday Josh's heat rash had come back but in different locations so we had to keep him out of the helmet that night and thankfully we all slept. Like an idiot though I put him back in the helmet on Thursday because I thought his rash looked better. What a mistake, I ended up making the rash worse (which I didn't realize until the next morning) and he cried from 10:30pm-2:30am when I finally got so frustrated from not sleeping that I took it off of him. When I saw his head in the morning (Friday) I freaked out a bit, called the office and a few hours later Josh and I were headed back to Phoenix so they could check him out again. Because his poor head looked so bad he was out of the helmet all Friday and half of Saturday. Finally today we got him back in it for the whole day and it looked pretty good. He's now asleep with it on and hopefully his little body is almost done adjusting and we have seen the end of the heat rashes. Keep your fingers crossed and say your prayers!